American And Delta Too Busy To Tag Your Bags, Want You To Do
It Yourself

Thought there wasn’t much more the airlines could fob off on the customer? You were wrong. Apparently, the employees at American and Delta are so slow at tagging your checked bags that the airlines think you’d do it better yourself.

The two carriers, as well as Air Canada, are trying to launch test programs that would have passengers tagging their own luggage with stickers printed out at self-service kiosks.

American and Air Canada are both hoping to start their trials out at Boston’s Logan International Airport between now and the crush of the holiday travel season; Delta’s test target has not yet been named.

From USA Today:

The trial will let the airlines’ customers at Boston Logan print tags from several customized self-service kiosks and place them directly on their luggage without agent supervision. Passengers will still have to see an agent in a dedicated line who will check the ID, scan the tag to validate it and place bags on the conveyor belt.

The bags will still be screened by TSA after they’ve been tagged, so there is no change in security nor any added risk, say the airlines.

There are currently 32 airports in the world that already have self-tagging kiosks of some sort. At some of these, it’s not even required to see an airline agent after you’ve tagged your bags.

This is just the latest move to automate the checking-in and boarding process. As reported this summer, Continental has begun testing self check-in at some of their gates in Houston.

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I’ve never had a problem with Air Canada in my life, (And I’ve flown Air Canada A LOT) so I’m gonna take this news on a bit of faith. Who knows, it might just turn out to be the greatest thing since the self-serve check-in kiosks. :3

I’m not sure this is necessarily anti-consumer…it may be another way to avoid standing in a long line, like the check-in line.

If you have an e-ticket, you already just go to the self-service kiosk to get your boarding pass…but if you have a bag to check, you have to go and wait in line at the counter, along with all the schmucks who have never flown before, who have lost their tickets, are trying to check a grand piano, have 42 screaming children with them, etc.

With this thing, you can print out your boarding pass, slap a sticker on your checked bag, and *hopefully* move in an orderly fashion through a self-served baggage check line where there’s really not much that can hold you up.

I’ll reserve my final declaration on it until I see it in action…but I am thinking this is probably just fine.

it’s just another way to cut personnel. If the airlines could find a way to do it without compromising security they’d have you down on the tarmac to load your own luggage into the bottom of the plane too.

to clarify…the airlines are not doing this to help you, they’re doing to make more money by laying people off. They won’t lower ticket prices either. In fact, coming next year: A new fee to put the tag on yourself!

Please let us know the FARE of a round trip ticket between say New York and Los Angeles today versus what that was in 1975. Exclude all taxes. You will find that against inflation air travel is WAY cheaper than it ever has been. Don’t let facts screw up your ant though

This just means the lines will be longer to get to the self service check in kiosk, then the self service bag tag. What can go wrong, right? Ever been to a Wal-Mart or home Depot where they have the self check outs, and some person (usually old) doesn’t know how to use them but insists on trying to figure it out when it is busy?

Not necessarily. Most times when I am using self check-in to check my bags, I have gone through all of the necessary setps, and printed out my boarding passes and then have to wait for several minutes until the agent can attach the stickers to my bag. During this time, the kiosk that I am at is not available fur use. If the machines allowed the traveler to apply the sticker, and you could throw it on the conveyor belt yourself I would be out of there much faster, freeing up the terminal for the next person. You will still get the person or group that needs extra help, and the agents can certainly help them, but for travelers who are comfortable traveling and using technology, it should speed up the process.

When ever I fly they usually have only 1 or 2 people manning the 10-15 self check stations. So you end up waiting 10-15 minutes just for them to come over and tag your bag and they pretty much take their sweet time doing it. I wouldn’t mind tagging my own bags, however at this point I’m already checking myself in and if I end up tagging my own bags I’m starting to feel like I’m an employee for the airlines. I wouldn’t mind tagging my own bags if say I got a discount for doing it. You want me to tag my own bag fine I will but then don’t charge me baggage fees then. JMO.

Why not? I, for one, LIKE the self-service kiosks! When I don’t have special needs, I can get in and out with little waiting. Being able to speed up bag-check is a win-win for everybody. I get out of line faster, the airline reduces its cost, and the current scrum of people waiting for bag tags gets much better.

Seems nice, doesn’t really bother me at all. I do wonder, though, what kind of responsibility that it takes off of the airline when it comes to lost luggage. Wasn’t there recently a big settlement with regard to that exact same matter?

What happens when a self-serve bag checker checks overweight bags? Do they have an attendant sitting at the self-serve baggage belt, weighing your checked bags and levying fees? Can you pay cash, or just by credit/debit?

I work for an airline, and part of my job is to actually tag the bags. Honestly, I don’t like this idea. While the job isn’t that hard, there’s a little more to it than you might think. First thoughts that come to mind:

1) When we tag the bag, we also check your ID to make sure that it is you checking it. Maybe not the most important security measure in the world, but it’s there and wouldn’t be much longer under this system.

2) It took me a couple tries to realize the fastest way to get the peeling off the sticker, and I can see a lot of people trying to peel from the wrong side or something. This isn’t a major problem for frequent fliers, who would get used to it pretty quickly, but when you have the grandparents that fly once a year for Christmas, you can bet that they’ll hold up the line for everybody else.

3) There are still other things that wouldn’t always be considered. The biggest thing I can think of is the duffel bags where the two handle straps are held together. A lot of people would just put the tag around that, but if something were to happen that they came apart, the tag isn’t going to stay on much longer. It’s better to just wrap the tag around one individual handle.

And…Flying Southwest from Chicago to Burbank. Bags tagged by SW at Midway Airport. Bag tags said BUR. Didn’t matter. Bags went to Buffalo. BUR/BUF same difference, right? Not exactly, since I showed up at Burbank, but my bags didn’t until the next day. I hope they enjoyed the trip to New York.

For new TSA security measures, Boston has always been on the forefront because two of the 9/11 hijacked planes left from Boston. Logan Airport was the one of the first to x-ray all checked baggage after 9/11, and way before the government mandated date.

Soon it will be load your bag into the cargo hold, fly your own plane, digging your own bag out of the cargo hold and the circle is complete: an airline with no employees. Completely operated by paying customers. Awesome!
No employees, unions or expenses: just money flowing in.

Eventually, you’ll have to do your own pat-down and security screen, as well as put the fuel in the plane and serve your own soda. Also, you’ll need to put your own bag on the plane and get it off again later, but they’ll still charge a checked bag fee.

Actually, I like this idea. Might actually alleviate some of the lines for checked baggage. I mean someone with a firearm in their checked luggage isn’t going to be able to use this system, obviously. But it does help keep the line moving.

Sounds great. 98 times out of 100, the kiosk is a better check in experience than a person. I have zero need to have someone interpose themselves between me and the actual flight and seat information in the vast majority of the cases, don’t see why I need someone to put the tag on my luggage. That being said, I virtually never check bags, so it’s kind of a moot point for me.

I like where this is going. Charge me more, and then let me scan myself through the “security” checkpoint. Another fee to load my baggage on the little conveyor truck and drive it up to the plane, and then just let me fly the plane. Then the whiny airline asshats can sit back and collect pay while everyone does their job for them.

Given that airline personnel still need to handle the bag and scan the tag, it’s not clear to me how this saves anyone time. It may well incur a COST of added time, dealing e.g. with misapplied tags, etc.